Internet-Magazin Internet Magazine

Chrysanthemum Nr. 20. Oktober 2016 89
Derek Ross
Sea and Stone
The air is full of the sea. I can feel my feet sink into the sand at the tide’s edge. In
my hand I have a stone. My eyes are closed.
A woman is helping her child to walk down a rocky shore. Where the water begins
they stop. Before them lies a whole sea, stretching all the way to the sky.
The child is a boy, no more than four years old. He is full of wonder.
Now the woman is talking to the child, she is telling him of the times her mother
brought her here to share the sea; of how the sea has many faces; of how the sea
comes and goes as it chases the moon; of how the sea will always be.
The woman bends down. She runs her hand through the stones at her feet, she is
searching. She picks up a stone, lays it on her palm and examines it for a while.
She closes her hand around it and stands up. The woman smiles, then throws the
stone into the sea. The boy watches the arc of the stone, he watches the splash,
he watches the ripples spread out to shatter the reflection of the sky.
It is the boy’s turn to bend down. He does not chose just one stone, he gathers up
handfuls of small pebbles and shells. He straightens and takes a step towards the
water. Then, instead of throwing his bounty, he scatters them like seeds on the
very edge of the sea. His mother smiles. “0ne at a time”, she says, “one at a
time”. The boy does not understand.
I open my eyes and cast my stone. I watch its arc, anticipate the splash…
ripples
trying to fill the sea
one stone at a time
Chrysanthemum No. 20. October 2016 89